Statin use and Alzheimer's Disease

From Geriatric Pharmacy Intern, Amalia Castro, PharmD(c)
Nova Southeastern University College of Pharmacy

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s disease is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States and affects more than 5 million Americans. This neurodegenerative disease targets brain cells causing irreversible damage and neuronal cell death, which results in severe memory impairment and radical changes in behavior. The Alzheimer’s Association also states that it is the most common form of dementia, accounting for 50 to 70 percent of dementia cases. Currently, this eventually fatal disease has no cure, and only symptomatic treatment and supportive care are offered to these patients in order to improve their quality of life. Consequently, it comes as no surprise that the struggle to find a way to reverse or eradicate this disease is crucial.

Recent promising studies show that statins, a class of commonly used cholesterol lowering drugs, may help protect brain cells against excitotoxicity, which consists on overstimulation of nerve cells, eventually leading to cell death. Overstimulation is the leading cause of degeneration of nerve cells in Alzheimer’s patients.

Lovastatin was the cholesterol reducing statin used in animal studies done by Amalia Dolga, PhD and her colleagues at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Her study showed that besides reducing cholesterol, Lovastatin was able to protect nerve cells against damage caused by overstimulation. By avoiding damage on nerve cells we can extend their memory capacity, avoid their deterioration and cell death caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

On her previous in vitro Lovastatin study, Dolga and colleagues were able to demonstrate this dug’s neuroprotection ability through the activation of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) 2 signaling pathway. This pathway protects cortical neurons against excitotoxicity that occurs in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Dolga was able to restate Lovastatin’s protection on cortical neurons, on her current in vivo animal study, and reaffirm that the neuroprotective effect of Lovastatin is dependent on the activation of other factors in the TNF pathway. Her findings strongly suggest that Lovastatin may be a promising guide towards improving neurodegenerative diseases. However, more studies need to be performed in order to be certain of statins’ benefits against Alzheimer’s disease.

More details about this study can be found in the June issue of The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.